Sunday 17 May 2009

I'm alive - again!

How long have I've been gone? Two hours?
It's like waking up from coma, the time has gone so fast since I pulled the plug. A quick update on what replaced the modding the last month.

- My company has been taking over some competitors business, that takes lots of effort and time.
- We have also started up business in 3 countries, lots of traveling for me.
- Along with the other projects I've been performing an extreme organization makeover and kick-started the development teams on our new generation of products.
- At home we try to get mine and my wifes home offices finished. As it's a complete and very slow destruct and rebuild project it has been a huge task beside them above.
- We have done some pretty large scale area adjustments to the surroundings of our little house (it's easier to do than in the toolset though) and I'm in the middle of building a new front porch together with a terrace at the back of the house.
- I've been fiddling with the book I've been talking about (No, not writing yet, as I promised, just researching).
- As I don't have enough to do I've started a new company on my own, besides my daily assignment, that work in a non-IT area. I'm thankful for not having my first customer yet :)

All this together with the pressure to build on Zork made me just sit and look at the toolset. Being 40+ I don't have time left to just sit and look so I pulled the plug, momentarily. And it took longer than I anticipated to get back on track (sort of).

So what's going to happen now? Today is the first time I launch the toolset since the break. Unlike many of the colleges that have burnt them out on module-building I been longing for it all time, every day. It'll take some time to orient myself in the module, find the way back where I stopped. I don't remember what bugs I were correcting, which area or script.

I still feel the pressure on myself. You now my usual ranting. The mod will be a niche module. Not everyone will understand it. The hardcore fans saying I'm blasphemous, and the ones that just stumbles upon it will think it's too difficult or strange that's it not a DnD-module. I'm afraid that I been too thorough at some parts and quite sloppy at other.

Anyway a new and probably last beta will be released and then we jump off the roof without safety line. Feels good!

Thanks for reading, as always!
/A

And for those few that wonder. Yes, I watched the whole Battlestar Galactica series too. And this morning I watched the first episode of Caprica. Call me simple, but I love it all.

2 comments:

Lance Botelle (Bard of Althéa) said...

Your hopes and fears about your module are the same we all share for our own. ;) We all wish you the best with it, no matter.

Just make sure you pitch it at the correct player *before* they download it and try to play it. In other words, be sure to let the player know what it is like and there should be no real issues. :)

E.g. If I download this module thinking I am about to play a D&D module, then I would score is a 5.0. BUT, if I was to download it as a graphic visual of the original Zork adventure game, then I would score somewhere along an 8.50 - 9.0! :)

Your BG watch sounded exciting. I would have sat through it as well. :)

Lance.

AmstradHero said...

Glad to hear that you're back up and running! Take your time and make Zork all it can be. I'm sure it will inspire some nostalgic memories, as everything you're doing appears to be recreating the original spirit of the game.